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The Whole 30 – my month

Well today went much easier than I thought. I pictured myself hankering after crap food all day but I went to work prepared. I had boiled eggs and some avocado slices for breakfast, some blueberries for a snack, salad for lunch (I really don’t like rabbit food) and the rest of my avocado at some point during the day. I also had some carrots to munch on. For dinner I made some chicken and sauteed vegetables. Altogether, day 1 wasn’t too bad let’s see if I can handle day 2.

Day 2There’s a snack bar at the office full of delicious things like Twix, my favorite. Snickers, my second favorite. Reese’s M&Ms, mmmmmm. Chocolate cupcakes, danishes, and the miscellaneous granola bar among other things. I walk into the break room and right by that snack bar at least 10 times a day and I’m proud that I was only a teeny weensy bit tempted. I tell you what was hard today was not having coffee. I’m not a coffee maniac but I enjoy a cup or two every day usually, and I like it sweet and blond just like I like my women hehehe…okay just kidding because I like men, but I do like cream and sugar in my coffee. Anyhoooo….

Day 3
This evening I went to a local organic grocer that grows a lot of his own produce, it’s the only store like it in town and their prices sure reflect the little monopoly status they have going on too lol. I bought some organic raisins, pumpkin seeds, and sunflower seeds to make a granola mix that the lady there recommended to me. She said it was all Whole 30 approved. I busted out my Instant Pot tonight (dude I love that thing) and threw in some chicken boobs, onions, cauliflower, garlic and sweet potatoes. Season it up and press “steam” then 30 minutes later, voila dinner! Except I forget that the whole point of a pressure cooker is to keep moisture in during the entire cooking process and sweet potatoes just don’t need to be that soft, unless you’re making baby food. So while my made up dinner was aromatic and flavorful it was also an unappealing blob of sweet potato baby mush with chicken chunks.

Day 4
Holy cow I’ve never gone this long on a diet, ANY DIET, without cheating. Not once! Not even a teensy bit! I’m so proud of myself. I keep waiting for the sugar withdrawals, the shakes, the headaches and grumpiness and constipation. So far it hasn’t happened yet. I brought left over baby yuck for lunch today but I just couldn’t make myself eat it. So instead I ate that homemade granola all day. It looks like bird food, literally. Just a bunch of seeds and some raisins. It is actually pretty yummy and since I nibbled on that all day long I wasn’t hungry at all. I do feel like I could go poo outside and grow a garden though…all those seeds…

Day 5Well week 1 is almost over. Today is my first day to try and meal plan while not at work. I wake up between 4-430 every morning for work and then come home by 5 with kid in tow. So that gives me 12 hours where I’m on the go, figuratively speaking, because I actually do a lot of sitting at work. But nonetheless weekends are different. I’m a night owl so I stay up till after 1am and sleep in till around 9. Ahhhh…adulthood, or should I say parenthood? Where sleeping in means 9am and no longer 1pm. Ha! Those were the days. Even after an all nighter and blitzed I can’t sleep past 10 at the latest. I have to be puking my guts up to sleep all day now. Not lazy though, lazy I can be with zero manual biological clock overrides. Anyway, still no cheating! I’m doing good on this thing and I feel fine. Not extra grumpy or suffering from lack of sugar. Does this mean I’m not doing something right, or that I wasn’t that hooked on sugar to begin with? (Fast forward to tonight….) I went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner tonight to celebrate the birthday of a friend of mine, the first time I’ve eaten out all week. I ordered beef/chicken fajitas with no tortillas, no sour cream, and no cheese. So basically just meat, bell peppers and onions. Those are all Whole 30 approved. What I didn’t consider however was the oil that everything was cooked in. Probably vegetable oil or canola oil. About 15 minutes after I cleared my plate my stomach started cramping and rumbling and I had to excuse myself to the restroom. An hour after that when I made it home I had to run to the restroom. So I guess that is proof that even after 1 week of healthy eating your body registers what is good for it and what isn’t, because that oil definitely went right through me! Ewwww….

Day 6
Still no cheating, apart from my thoughtless consumption of forbidden cooking oils. I commented to my dad that I’m surprised how mentally easy it has been for me to avoid all the things I can’t eat and he says that it makes sense – since I’m an emotional eater and I’m at a better place in my life emotionally – it’s easier to resist because I don’t need the crutch as much. How very true. I am happy. Well, happier. To just claim happiness plain and simple seems rather arrogant, and happy is fleeting. Joy is everlasting, and that’s what I’m working on.

Skip days 7-11. No time to write!

Day 12 (Friday Jan 16)
Today me and two of my girlfriends are taking off to Ruidoso for a ski weekend. We’ve rented a cabin for the 3 of us and I’m super excited. One of them had her birthday in early January so this is kind of a birthday weekend celebration, just a bit late. I’m not bringing my computer with me so I’ll check in later!

Day 13 and 14My girls were so supportive, we hit up the grocery store and bought eggs, veggies, fruit and some other healthy snacks so that I wouldn’t be tempted to cheat when we went out to eat. On Friday night I ate the most delicious salad, it had candied pecans and some blue cheese on it that I avoided for the most part, but a couple of wayward morsels might have made it onto my fork. Might have…ok, did. So that’s my first official “cheat.” The sweetest guy on the planet, my boyfriend, told me it was vacation and I couldn’t be a food Nazi so if I had a glass of wine this weekend and ate something Whole 30 forbids, well sorry not sorry. But that isn’t what I wanted to do. So far I’ve proven to myself that I actually do have the willpower to make healthy eating decisions, I’m proud of myself in a way that only a chubby person can be when they improve their diet, I don’t want to give that up for nothing. Now it’s almost a contest I’m having with myself. Can I stick it out for an entire 30 days? You betcha! In fact while my two girlfriends got incredibly hammered on martinis I sat there sipping what had to have been a gallon of water. I stayed sober and drove responsibly.

And then…..

And then I nearly tore my left leg right off my body from the knee down in a stupid skiing accident because I DO NOT know how to ski. I was stupid brave and attempted a slope I couldn’t handle, albeit green it was still too much for me. So that night I said to hell with it and allowed myself a single hot chocolate with Bailey’s in it. I was in pain and grumpy and sick – yes I got SICK on my skiapalooza weekend, ugh – and told myself that I deserved it. I was on vacation dammit. And injured. But it wasn’t worth it. 😦 Day 14 defeated me, I’m blaming the mountain. Stupid skis.

Day 15Monday, MLK day. Woe is me and my poor knee! Thankfully my friends weren’t just supportive of my diet (despite drinking booze and eating apple pie in front of me) they also went all Florence Nightingale on me and stocked me up with meds for head cold, tylenol for my knee plus a knee brace and they lent me their shoulders to lean on, literally, because I was limping like a 100 year old granny. I went to the doctor today and had it x-rayed. One happy thing to come out of this is that I think I’ve lost about 15 pounds! I didn’t actually weigh myself before starting but based on what I last think I was, that’s about 15 pound in 15 days. Crikey! Yippee!

Skip days 16-21. Much less meal planning in advance but no cheating occurred. I’ve never eaten so many veggies in my life. Who needs vitamins?

Day 22 (Monday Jan 26)
My man made dinner for me tonight. He does that at least once a week, comes over and cooks. I’m so lucky to have him and also to be able to do this together with him. However we are both in agreement that we are so over this diet. Yes I feel good. I’m sleeping just fine and my energy levels are consistent. I’ve lost weight. I think my skin looks clearer. I can’t tell a difference in my hair though, yet. I wake up without snoozing for as long as I used to and I can bypass the Satan-inspired snack bar at work without a second thought. In fact it barely even registers anymore. I still want something sweet after dinner but fruit works just fine. I’m way less gassy, hahahaha….TMI? Not once in the last 22 days have I felt bloated or so full that I need to unbutton my pants. I’m also really pleased to see that in the beginning I felt like maybe I was binging on good food because I couldn’t binge on bad food, but now that’s gone too. I eat just what I need to feel satiated and then I’m done with no desire to eat more. But in spite of all that I just REALLY want some creamy chicken alfredo pasta with buttery garlic bread. Or a big slice of cheesy pepperoni pizza with jalapeno peppers and thick crust. A crispy, flaky, warm blackberry cobbler with vanilla bean ice cream sounds delicious too, and a cinnabon from Cinnabon would be the booooomb. I’m looking forward to reintroducing all the forbidden foods into my diet because they’re just plain delicious and who wants to live without them forever? I only hope that I won’t reestablish the cravings and food addictions that I had. I hope I am strong enough to be consistent with the good habits I’ve worked 22 days on establishing.

Eight more days…I’ll update this post to include all that when I hit day 30.